Writing Across the Curriculum: R.A.F.T. Prompts using RAFT assignments to teach perspective and to make writing tasks more authentic

Meet Terra Graves, a Northern Nevada Writing Project Consultant since 2004. Terra wrote the following introduction to the fifth and final module in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Writing Across the Curriculum Guide:

"Before I moved to middle school, I taught sixth grade for nine years. What did I least look forward to...the state writing assessment! Why? Because the prompts that the students had to respond to were so…so…blah! Usually, just about everyone could write to the prompt, but it wasn’t always very meaningful to them.

"When I discovered the R.A.F.T. prompts, my prompt aversion promptly subsided. These are wonderful! The students like them because the prompts can be customized to what they are learning. R.A.F.T. prompts encourage writing that is meaningful. The writing they produce actually expands their understanding of a concept. Because of the different aspects of the prompt, students must assume a different point of view (ROLE) to shape the information (TOPIC) they learned into a particular format.

"When my students got to create their own prompts, I couldn’t believe what they came up with. Once they’re given the structure of the R.A.F.T. prompt, and the 'menus' to help them, they treated it like it was a game. I encourage content area teachers everywhere to use this strategy to elicit meaningful writing for learning in their classes.

Want to contribute to this popular WritingFix page? If you have an original RAFT lesson or resource that you would be willing to let us post here, we will send you one of the NNWP Print Publications in exchange for us being allowed to feature it. Contact us at webmaster@writingfix.com for details or to summarize a RAFT lesson idea that you'd be willing to send us.

Northern Nevada teacher Pam Ashby shared with us this RAFT writing assignment she created for her third graders as an introduction to RAFT writing assignments. Her assignment is inspired by the picture book Tough Boris by Mem Fox.

Northern Nevada teacher Jennifer Mitchell shared with us this RAFT writing assignment she created for her elementary students as an review to writing friendly letters. Her assignment is inspired by the picture book Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School by Mark Teague.

Northern Nevada Writing Project Consultant Sandy Madura shared with us this RAFT writing assignment she created for her elementary students as an review to writing friendly letters. Her assignment is inspired by the picture book Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster by Debra Frasier.

Nevada teachers Samantha Schoolroy and Julie Schmidt sent us charming student samples from their nutrition unit, and helped them build the lesson into an on-line RAFTS prompt. In this lesson, students assume the role of a fruit or vegetable they've studied, then they write a campaign on why their fruit or vegetable should be elected "The most nutritious" in an upcoming election.

Nevada high school teacher, Tracey Albee, attended our Persuasive Writing Class and proposed this poetry lesson, which she uses to help her students discover the voice of characters in novels they are studying. After brainstorming the beliefs of a character, students create free-verse poems from the character's perspective. After reading the poems out loud, fellow students try to guess which character the student's poem belongs to.